RFR Realty purchaced properties in 2007

Richard Lee

Published 8:04 pm, Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Three Class A office buildings in Stamford's central business district have been put on the market, but the identity of potential buyers might be a matter of conjecture.

New York City-based RFR Realty this month hired CBRE, a national commercial real estate firm, to market 300 Atlantic St., 177 Broad St., and Canterbury Green, part of a 1.6-million-square-foot, seven-building package the company bought in early 2007 from the Blackstone Group for $850 million.

RFR, which declined to discuss the plan to market the properties, will retain the four-building Stamford Plaza office complex on Tresser Boulevard. CBRE also declined to comment.

Several other commercial real estate brokers also were reluctant to discuss the decision to market the properties, but Erin Patterson, research manager with the Stamford office of Jones Lang LaSalle, said it will be difficult for RFR to get the same price for the buildings that it paid seven years ago.

"In July 2007, at the peak of the investment sales market, on average the buildings they purchased were $500 to $525 per square foot. A pretty good offer will be $300 to $350 per square foot," she said.

Saying Stamford Plaza is "one of the best assets on the market," Patterson said asking rents at Stamford Plaza are in the $50 to $55 per square foot range, and they are in the $50 range at 300 Atlantic St. Asking rents at 177 Broad St., are about $45 per square foot and $40 per square foot at Canterbury Green.

At 201 Broad St., Canterbury Green includes 242,000 square feet of office space that is 56.5 percent leased and 106 apartments that are 90 percent occupied, she said. The building at 300 Atlantic St., a 279,500-square-foot complex, is 81.7 percent leased, and 177 Broad St., a 196,000-square-foot building, is 85.6 percent occupied.

According to the Stamford office of Colliers International, at the end of the first quarter the availability rate in the city's central business district was 22.6 percent -- down 1.7 percent from the previous quarter and down 2.5 percent from the first quarter of 2013.

"The market is actually back to pre-2007 levels, if not a little better," said Jeffrey Williams, executive managing director of Colliers' Stamford office. "It makes sense that the three are in one package."

Williams declined to comment on the properties, but said Canterbury Green is a unique building. "I've heard that conversion to apartments may not be a bad idea," he said.

Given its location and occupancy levels, Canterbury Green could present an opportunity for an imaginative new owner, Patterson said. "It certainly has a great potential to be repositioned into multifamily," she said.

Patterson said the three properties likely will attract interest from outside the region.

"Stamford has become the headline market of Fairfield County. This transaction is hugely impactful," she said, adding an outside buyer could affect rental rates for the Central Business District.